Canon EOS 50D

One year ago, I bought my current camera, a Canon 40D. Today, it’s replacement is announced, the Canon EOS 50D

Why is this a big deal? Because Canon bumped their schedule by 18 months. For the past few years the XXD line was a new camera every 18 months, and I felt secure in that.

Now, my formerly good top of the line camera will only take crappy photos, and all my existing ones will begin to fade and blur and age prematurely. I’ll have to go back and reshoot everything!

Seriously though, there’s not that many advantages over my existing set up:

• 5 more Megapixels (15 over 10, yawn)
• ISO 3200 native instead of 1600
• Digic 4 instead of Digic 3 for image processing

So why the yawn over more megapixels? For most things, we probably don’t need them. Unless it Canon did something to really brings out the clarity and sharpness, I can’t tell the difference between an 8 and 10 MP print unless it’s more than 16×20, or maybe 20×30 in resolution. There will also be some bigger diffraction issues that will crop up with smaller aperture lenses. Supposedly ( and I can’t see this myself, but I haven’t looked hard), my 40D starts having diffraction issues about f/11 or f/12. This is solely due to the size of the sensors elements…. I’ll have to wait and see what the theory says. 

Either way, I’m not rushing to stores to pick it up just yet. If I didn’t have a 40D, I might to upgrade from the XT…. but I just don’t see the need yet.

I think I’ll shoot some more photos real soon.